Sometimes This is the Only Way to Stay Cool

6x6 inches, paper collage

My studio is a narrow room under the eves upstairs, and in the summer it get really hot.  Really hot. That's the excuse I'm using for my not working harder on my collages and paintings lately.  I was supposed to be in Madison this morning at the figure painting studio, but I didn't have the energy to get packed and drive up there - so I decided to work at home instead. I got going before it heated up too much, and this is the result.  I found a couple gems at the local consignment shop, an old ledger from a cheese factory, and a children's book on birding.  Neither was precious, except to me as a source for paper and imagery.  I think the castle was from an old National Geographic. 

Completed Collage - Peaches and Summer Cherries

5x11 inches, paper collage

I finally finished the paper collage I did for the Inspiration All Around Us challenge.  As I mentioned in my last post, my idea was to create a paper collage with a watercolor under painting in complimentary colors, and to let those colors show through.  In general, I like the results, and will try more collages with this technique.  I like my color choices, though the yellow table cloth is close to the peach in value and hue.  I also like the bits of background color peeking though, and the textures in the vintage papers and maps I ripped up and cut to create the composition.  I tried to have some papers with no printing, so it wasn't too busy, and I think that worked too.  The peach on the left is my least favorite, perhaps because I tried to do too much shading.  Still, it was a good experience, and I am satisfied with how it turned out.

Cherries and Peaches, In Progress

I had a brainstorm the other day when I was browsing the Inspiration All Around Us blog, and thinking about whether I wanted to try the current challenge or not.  I decided that I did, but that I wanted to experiment with a variation on the collage work I have done in the past.  Sometimes my collages are based on images, and sometimes I just "paint" with scraps of paper I find or alter. For this challenge I decided to combine a painting technique I learned from artist Shelby Keefe with my own collage work.  Keefe does beautiful impressionistic oil paintings that have under painting of complimentary colors.  Here I asked myself what would happen if I did a watercolor under painting in complimentary colors, then applied paper  in the colors of the design over that, being careful to leave some of the opposite color to peek through and enliven the image.

This first photo shows my source image, the current challenge photo (cropped), and the watercolor first layer.  I'm working on 140 lb. Arches paper here, which seems OK because the collage image is only 6x11 inches.  If it were larger I would work on something stiffer, like 300 lb. watercolor paper or illustration board.

I got out my envelopes of papers I have ready to go, sorted by color.  Some are used as is, some are old pages from vintage magazines, maps, or other papers which I have glazed with acrylic color thinned down with gel medium.  I try to use a variety of sizes, some with print, some plain. This stage has the yellow table cloth, with the blue peeking through in places.

                                     

The source photo has a neutral back wall, but I wanted something more lively, so I chose some turquoise papers, and let the yellow gold underneath show a bit.

I have not started the peaches or cherries, but have hope that they will be clear enough to recognize and interesting.